ISSUE 009
I was fourteen when I read my first map.
Before it, I felt like an outcast. After it, I felt like I had superpowers. Superhuman.
If you are new here: November is about time — how to make our days more productive while staying calm, and how to enjoy the ordinary ones without burning out. It begins with something I have been quietly making for years.
2008.
My best friend was lost. She had no motivation for the work she thought she wanted. She was not in a relationship. She was questioning her worth and feeling insecure, and she had tried everything — the self-help books, a life coach.
So I made her a map.
A map is a blueprint of the beauty of who you are. From there, it shows what the next twelve months can look like, with suggestions shaped around what you want to focus on next.
Part of it is written in numerology and symbolic astrology — not as prediction, but as a language for reflection.
The years without a date.
For years, I worked. Then I overworked. I was productive in the way that gets praised, and I worked so hard that my health and my relationships were collapsing. My health paid the price for not being more conscious of my own wellbeing.
I tell you this because I know what it is to be very productive and very depleted at the same time. Most of the women reading this do too.
Nine years later.
My client Angie received her first map during one of the hardest stretches of her life. Love lost. A new city, a new job, new friends — all at once.
Nine years later now, an email arrived from her. She told me the report had sounded a little silly at first. But as she read it, and as time went by, she started to pay more attention to it, and she realized how little she had known about herself. With small changes to her daily schedule, and a new look at her life, she became a stronger, more confident woman.
And how is Angie today? I am happy to say she is healthy, happy, and very content with her life.
Fridays.
My Fridays look different now. They are not a productivity trick. They are the opposite of how I used to work.
If you take one thing from this letter, try it this Friday.
THE FRIDAY HOUR
Finish work earlier than usual.
Look back over the week before you look ahead.
Let yourself appreciate the love and the feedback you received.
Reflect on what actually happened.
Then plan next week, calmly, around the steps that move the needle.
Now.
For years I have made these for friends, for clients, for the people I love — and once a year, for myself.
Today, The Sempre Bella Life Map™ is live.
I am opening it at a founding price of $195, for the first ten women this season.
One of you wrote to me after last Sunday's letter to ask about my new projects. This is the first. The second is all about fun — something that will lift your mood, strengthen your body and move your emotions. Stay tuned, beauties. Sempre Moves is coming soon.
December is close. Most of us will spend it closing out the year we had. I would like you to spend a little of it being grateful for the lessons and blessings, then seeing the year you could have.
A mulher que cuida de si mesma pode cuidar de tudo.
What would you want the next twelve months to look like? Hit reply and tell me. I read every one.
Cheers to a bella vita, sempre.
Maria Antonietta
Sempre Bella · The Executive Aesthetic™
